The Ringer - Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season 2018-10-22T18:24:49-04:00http://www.theringer.com/rss/stream/177633232018-10-22T18:24:49-04:002018-10-22T18:24:49-04:00The Starting 11: The Saints Are Not-So-Under-the-Radar Super Bowl Contenders
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<p>Thanks to a rare Justin Tucker gaffe, New Orleans squeaked past the Ravens on Sunday. But don’t let the missed kick distract you — the Saints have the talent to beat anyone. Plus: The Vikings are finding their form, Blake Bortles has found the bench, and Dallas has found a new offensive piece in Amari Cooper.</p> <aside id="4CstM1"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p id="5BEi20"><em>Welcome to the Starting 11. This NFL season, we’ll be collecting the biggest story lines, highlighting the standout players, and featuring the most jaw-dropping feats of the week. Let’s dive in:</em></p>
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<p id="aZ6OCU"><strong>1. Don’t let Justin Tucker’s missed extra point distract you—after their 24-23 win over Baltimore on Sunday, the Saints are now the clear no. 2 team in the NFC. </strong>Watching the best kicker in football botch an extra point for the first time in his career was a surreal way for this game to end, but New Orleans’s second-half showing against one of the league’s best defenses was impressive. Drew Brees and Michael Thomas connected for multiple comeback-saving passes late in the fourth quarter, and though Brees would finish with only 212 yards passing on the day, the Saints were still able to generate just enough offense to win. </p>
<p id="Bp2qa9">New Orleans converted four of five fourth-down chances on the day, including a Brees QB sneak midway through the fourth quarter that set up the go-ahead touchdown to Thomas. With Brees at the controls—and with weapons like Thomas and Alvin Kamara at his disposal—this team is nearly impossible to stop in high-leverage situations. And with backup quarterback Taysom Hill getting in on the action as a read-option element in certain packages, they’re only getting more difficult to figure out. Games like this one—on the road, with wind gusting, against a defense that’s crushed opponents at times this season—were almost automatic losses for the Saints when they were in their run of 7-9 seasons. But this offense—with its stellar pass-protecting group, that allowed one sack and three hits a week after Baltimore sacked Marcus Mariota 11 times—looks complete right now, and New Orleans keeps managing to find a way.</p>
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<p id="pCeMLs"><strong>2. The Vikings are starting to roll—and that’s bad news for the rest of the NFC. </strong>Following a rough two-game stretch to close out September, the Vikings have rattled off three straight wins, including their 37-17 victory over the Jets on Sunday. Minnesota’s defense may not be the suffocating unit it was last season, but Mike Zimmer’s group is slowly starting to resemble the units we’ve seen in years past. The Vikings stopped teams on 20 consecutive third downs dating back to the third quarter of their win over the Eagles in Week 5, and flailing stars like Xavier Rhodes have started to round into form. (There was a scary moment on Sunday when it looked like Rhodes might be severely injured, but Zimmer said after the game that it’s only a sprained ankle.)</p>
<p id="HOaP2b">If Minnesota’s defense can continue its climb, its offense has more than enough firepower to make the Vikings a scary proposition come playoff time. The offensive line is still a major concern (Kirk Cousins was hit seven times on Sunday), but when they do manage to protect the quarterback, this passing game has an absurdly high ceiling. Adam Thielen recorded his seventh straight 100-yard game on Sunday, and the connection he has with Cousins has become one of the most reliable in the league. It’s been an undeniably wonky season for the Vikings to this point, but at 4-2-1 and atop a division filled with uneven teams, it’s looking more and more like their talent will eventually win out. </p>
<aside id="BGucrP"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Todd Gurley’s NFL MVP Case Is Only Getting Stronger","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18009198/todd-gurley-los-angeles-rams-mvp-case"}]}'></div></aside><p id="DK0qpo"><strong>3. After the Cowboys and Eagles lost on Sunday, the NFC East looks like one huge, jumbled mess. </strong>Jason Garrett’s decision-making near the end of the Cowboys’ 20-17 loss to Washington was a clinic on how <em>not </em>to handle late-game situations. With 12 seconds left, Dallas had the ball at the Washington 31-yard line and needed three points. Rather than keeping his foot on the throttle, Garrett elected to run the ball, despite having one timeout remaining. The Cowboys gained just 2 yards. Then on the field goal attempt, the long snapper was called for a false start, pushing the attempt from 47 yards to 52. Naturally, the kick bounced off the upright and sealed the loss. Dallas dropping another game in which it failed to put up points isn’t shocking. What is notable from the result is that the Redskins—who looked like a disaster in New Orleans two weeks ago—are now 4-2 and lead the division.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Brett Maher's 52-yard field goal attempt refuses to go in.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NFL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cowboys?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cowboys</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Redskins?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Redskins</a> <a href="https://t.co/V2Nikx9tfe">pic.twitter.com/V2Nikx9tfe</a></p>— fuboTV (@fuboTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/fuboTV/status/1054157596645621760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="0RMaNl">Washington’s offense has been underwhelming all season, but the defense has been surprisingly effective. Their front seven dominated a once-great Dallas offensive line all afternoon. Ezekiel Elliott finished with just 33 yards on 15 carries, and the Redskins hit Dak Prescott nine times, including four sacks. Washington has used a ton of high-level assets to assemble its front four, and that investment is paying off. Last year’s first-round pick, Jonathan Allen, and 2018 first-round pick Da’Ron Payne are a formidable duo inside, and Ryan Kerrigan is still an impactful pass rusher off the edge; he picked up two sacks on Sunday, and although he has only three on the season, his 20 QB hurries are tied for fifth in the league among edge defenders, according to Pro Football Focus. </p>
<p id="Y3TFHu">Washington’s win-ugly recipe looks even more intriguing as the Eagles continue to struggle. Carson Wentz was accurate all game in Philly’s 21-17 loss to the Panthers, but the defense collapsed down the stretch. The Eagles secondary has been a problem all year, and if the defensive line isn’t getting pressure, the unit doesn’t stand much of a chance. Carolina’s passing game was nonexistent for the first three quarters as Michael Bennett and friends tormented Cam Newton, but when the pass rush slowed down late in the game, Newton was able to sit in the pocket and pick on cornerbacks Jalen Mills and Ronald Darby. After watching what happened last season, it’s tempting to bet on the Eagles’ talent overcoming their struggles and pushing the team into the postseason. But at 3-4, the season is starting to slip away from them. </p>
<p id="rWjjXk"><strong>4. In the latest chapter of the Blake Bortles saga in Jacksonville, the Jaguars benched their starting quarterback in favor of Cody Kessler, and it’s fair to wonder where the team goes from here. </strong>Around this time a year ago, the Jags were emerging as the best story in the NFL. Their combination of a dominant pass rush and cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye made for a deliriously fun unit that smothered opposing passing attacks and was good for a defensive touchdown every other game. Bortles’s up-and-down tendencies gave Jacksonville a volatile but still dangerous offense, and it seemed like that formula would be workable for at least this season. But after starting 6-for-12 with two lost fumbles in Sunday’s 20-7 loss to the Texans, Bortles was benched. Coach Doug Marrone <a href="https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/1054467996272463874">said Monday</a> that Bortles will be back under center when the Jags take on the Eagles in London next week—after all, if there’s any place that Good Bortles can rediscover his mojo, it’s across the pond. But when a starting quarterback gets yanked, it’s going to at least start a conversation. </p>
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<cite>Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports</cite>
<figcaption>Blake Bortles</figcaption>
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<p id="vVH677">Sending Bortles to the bench after a performance like Sunday’s is defensible, but at this point, Kessler probably isn’t a better option. The Jags’ biggest mistake with their quarterback situation wasn’t keeping Bortles in the starting job for this long—it was making him their only realistic option this season. Jacksonville could probably make a panic trade for someone like Sam Bradford or Tyrod Taylor. Tom Coughlin could try to get the band back together and bring Eli Manning to Jacksonville. But none of those options is particularly appealing—and even if they were, a move like that doesn’t make sense in late October. With injuries all over the offense (including at running back and left tackle), the unit’s best chance is probably just hoping the good version of Bortles shows up a few more times this season. That isn’t much of a plan, but for now, it might be Jacksonville’s best bet. This offseason, there will be a serious discussion about the Jags’ QB direction—though, given the contract extension Bortles signed last offseason, the financials get complicated if he’s cut. It’s strange to say after such a promising 2017, but the Jags’ title window might already be closed.</p>
<p id="grjaF4"><strong>5. The Amari Cooper trade is a fascinating pivot point for two NFL franchises. </strong>Jon Gruden dealt Cooper to Dallas in exchange for a first-round pick on Monday, and in doing so he’s made his intentions in Oakland clear: This is a full-scale teardown of the Raiders’ roster. In two months, Gruden has traded Cooper and Khalil Mack, both players who were once thought to be foundational pieces for an emerging young franchise. At this rate, it’s worth wondering who on the Raiders’ roster should feel confident about their future with the team. Derek Carr is due just $7.25 million in dead money if he’s traded or released this offseason, and the Raiders will likely finish low enough in the standings that they’ll have a top-five pick in the 2019 draft to use on a new franchise quarterback. And even if they don’t finish that low on their own, they have two extra first-round picks that will give them plenty of ammunition to move up in the draft if they so choose. In the first year of his 10-year deal, Gruden is fashioning himself as the face of the Raiders, and his tactics have likely left the veterans in that locker room wondering what the hell is happening.</p>
<aside id="3kv46P"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Cowboys Had to Make an Awful Trade to Get a Maybe-Good Receiver","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18011264/amari-cooper-dallas-cowboys-oakland-raiders-trade"}]}'></div></aside><p id="yMbUyv">On the Dallas side, the trade makes some sense, even if the asking price was extremely high. Cooper is set to make nearly $14 million next season on his fifth-year option, and he hasn’t looked like a no. 1 receiver for some time. It’s possible that a change in scenery will be enough to unlock Cooper’s potential — he’s still only 24 years old, after all — and allow him to rediscover the player he was in his first two seasons in the league. But giving up a first-round pick for a guy making top-20 money at his position, who will also need a contract extension after 2019, is a lot. There are some larger implications to this deal, though. Cooper could provide a significant talent boost to Dallas’s receiving corps, and in turn give the team a chance to evaluate Dak Prescott’s abilities through a new lens. Next year, Prescott will enter the final year of his rookie contract, and this offseason the Cowboys will have to decide whether they want to pay him upward of $20 million per season on an extension or let him enter 2019 without a new deal. If Cooper provides Prescott with a quality target and the offense still struggles, it’d be a larger indictment of Prescott’s play and may help the Cowboys decide whether or not to employ a wait-and-see method and franchise-tag him (though as we saw with Kirk Cousins over the past few years, that can be a dangerous line to walk). With Cooper in the fold, Dallas’s offense gets a significant talent boost, but there are plenty more questions to answer both this season and beyond.</p>
<p id="DcPKfR"><strong>6. The Texans have been playing with fire all season by putting Deshaun Watson behind a ragged offensive line, but the team’s collection of talented players has propelled Houston to the top of the AFC South with a 4-3 record. </strong>It seems reductionist to say that every once in a while, having a few dominant stars is enough, but in Houston’s case, that’s been true this season. DeAndre Hopkins had three big catches against the Jags on Sunday despite being shadowed by Jalen Ramsey all game. Jadeveon Clowney was <em>everywhere </em>for the Houston defense, with four QB hits, two tackles for loss, and two sacks. Tyrann Mathieu added an interception, and J.J. Watt consistently bothered Jacksonville’s quarterbacks off the edge. Houston’s roster is littered with holes—mostly up front—but in a winnable AFC South, its collection of high-level talent might make it the front-runner in the division.</p>
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<cite>Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Patrick Mahomes II</figcaption>
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<p id="LZhVe6"><strong>7. Patrick Mahomes II’s start to the season has been even more ridiculous than it seems. </strong>With Mahomes throwing four touchdown passes on Sunday in a 45–10 win over the Bengals, he now sits at 22 through seven weeks. That puts him on pace for 50 TDs over a full 16-game season. Two guys in NFL history have ever pulled that off; their names are Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Yes, Mahomes has the league’s most talented supporting cast and an offensive scheme that accentuates the skills of all its featured pieces, but that doesn’t take away from the historic run this dude has been on. The Chiefs are borderline unstoppable right now, and Mahomes is their driving force.</p>
<p id="mvniDx"><strong>8. Some of the late-game decisions in the Chargers’ 20–19 win over the Titans in London have been lambasted, but not the ones that should have been. </strong>Tennessee coach Mike Vrabel has taken some heat over his decision to go for two at the end of the game and not play for overtime. While the play call — an empty set from the 1-yard line, for a team that has Derrick Henry at running back — was a mistake, the choice to go for the win was not. It’s unlikely that Tennessee would have had a better look at the end zone over the entire overtime period than it did on the final two-point try. The Titans controlled the ball for much of the second half, but they were also roasted by two quick-strike Chargers drives earlier in the game. Going for the win in that moment and not letting Philip Rivers touch the ball again was more than defensible.</p>
<p id="3jB3OW">The real problem late in that game was with the Chargers’ clock-management decisions. With 2:13 remaining in the fourth and the Titans down seven, Marcus Mariota completed a 16-yard pass to Tajae Sharpe, which brought Tennessee to the Chargers’ 14-yard line. At that point, the Titans had more than enough clock to score, and with three timeouts remaining, Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn should have made sure that he had time left if the Titans did tie the game or take the lead. Instead, Lynn let the clock tick down and finally called his <em>first </em>timeout with 35 seconds left. After Tennessee’s failed two-point conversion, that poor time management no longer mattered, but Lynn cost himself a chance to have a minute and change remaining on the clock with one of the NFL’s best big-play offenses. The Chargers are damn good, man, but they’re also maddening at times.</p>
<p id="jhGoOd"><strong>9. This week in </strong><em><strong>tales of the tape: </strong></em><strong>The battle between DeAndre Hopkins and Jalen Ramsey was everything you could have wanted it to be. </strong>The All-Pro corner shadowed Hopkins for a majority of Sunday’s game, and although Hopkins was limited to three catches, those plays were all massive gains for the Texans. Aside from his ridiculous hands (see: his one-handed snag down the sideline in the first half), Hopkins’s best trait is his physicality. The hand-fighting between he and Ramsey as they jockeyed for position was stuff you’d typically see between two guys battling in the trenches. Wide receiver–cornerback showdowns can occasionally be overblown, but not this time.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/DeAndreHopkins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeAndreHopkins</a> vs <a href="https://twitter.com/jalenramsey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JalenRamsey</a> Part II:<br><br>Ramsey has won his share as well, but this one is all Hopkins' physicality in the release and high-pointing the ball for the TD.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Texans?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Texans</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DUUUVAL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DUUUVAL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HOUvsJAX?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HOUvsJAX</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@McClain_on_NFL</a> <a href="https://t.co/cdlNPwdzHy">pic.twitter.com/cdlNPwdzHy</a></p>— NFL Matchup on ESPN (@NFLMatchup) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLMatchup/status/1054430985088090114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2018</a>
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<p id="vfw1cN"><strong>10. This week’s </strong><em><strong>line play moment that made me hit rewind</strong></em><strong>: Aaron Donald was unblockable against the Niners. </strong>Donald’s best asset is his explosiveness at the snap, but he’s also able to use the threat of that speed to consistently crush guards with power rushes. Because so many offensive linemen set Donald outside as they try to cut off the edge, his power moves can be devastating. Donald collapses the pocket so quickly that he’s able to just throw the center into C.J. Beathard to bring him down. The Rams defense has struggled in the secondary this season, with injuries to Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, but when Donald is affecting games like he did on Sunday, it just doesn’t matter.</p>
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<p id="7rRK97"><strong>11. This week in </strong><em><strong>NFL players, they’re absolutely nothing like us</strong></em><strong>: Kareem Hunt is the </strong><em><strong>least </strong></em><strong>explosive member of the Chiefs offense, and he can still do this.</strong></p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Oh my goodness, <a href="https://twitter.com/Kareemhunt7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Kareemhunt7</a>!<br><br> : <a href="https://twitter.com/SNFonNBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@snfonnbc</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChiefsKingdom?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChiefsKingdom</a> <a href="https://t.co/eYJtoWRplC">pic.twitter.com/eYJtoWRplC</a></p>— NFL (@NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1054169831606444032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2018</a>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18011046/the-starting-11-new-orleans-saints-nfc-east-blake-bortles-amari-cooperRobert Mays2018-10-22T11:56:28-04:002018-10-22T11:56:28-04:00Todd Gurley’s NFL MVP Case Is Only Getting Stronger
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<p>The Rams’ star is the best player on the league’s last undefeated team. But can a running back really be the most valuable player in an era defined by prolific QBs?</p> <aside id="xgl2eV"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p class="p--has-dropcap" id="QT837u">In this era of the NFL, it’s nearly impossible for a running back to win MVP. The past five (and 10 of the past 11) winners have been quarterbacks, thanks largely to scheme adjustments and rule changes opening up the passing game. The chasm between the value of a QB and that of any other position is only widening. When Patrick Mahomes II throws 22 touchdown passes in seven games, it’s tough to argue against quarterback supremacy. </p>
<p id="npi95H">But Rams running back Todd Gurley is making a convincing case. He recorded three touchdowns in Sunday’s 39-10 win over the 49ers, bringing his season total to a league-high 14 rushing and receiving touchdowns, and through seven weeks he’s been one of the most dominant players in the league. Gurley has come close to winning the award before; he was named Offensive Player of the Year in 2017 after racking up nearly 2,100 yards from scrimmage and 19 touchdowns in his first season under head coach Sean McVay. Those numbers weren’t enough to beat out Tom Brady for the league’s most coveted trophy, but Gurley had a claim as the most outstanding offensive player in the NFL—even if he wasn’t necessarily the most valuable. </p>
<p id="Q2tTW4">That question of value is often the crux of the case against running backs, in terms of their place in the MVP conversation and the capital that should be spent on them in both the draft and free agency: They’re seen as replaceable. No matter how talented a given running back is, he’s still viewed as just another cog in the offensive machine. If a team has the right infrastructure, that cog can be switched out, and the machine will keep on chugging. And for most NFL offenses, that’s true. </p>
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<p id="82aq5x">The way the Jaguars use Leonard Fournette (when he’s actually on the field) doesn’t make him worth the fourth overall pick, and even Ezekiel Elliott doesn’t give the Cowboys what a top-five pick at another position probably could. James Conner has been a more-than-adequate fill-in for Le’Veon Bell in Pittsburgh; as great as Saquon Barkley has been for the Giants, they’re still 1-5 and cruising toward another top pick. The difference with Gurley is that, unlike most backs, he’s the centerpiece of his team’s machine. The Rams’ explosiveness and their identity starts with him, and that’s why he’s more valuable than other running backs. </p>
<p id="7pdvcS">Gurley’s performance Sunday was a prime example of what he brings to McVay’s offense, in both overt and subtle ways. He didn’t have a massive day statistically (86 yards from scrimmage on 19 touches), but he did get into the end zone three times. Gurley’s touchdown numbers are partly the product of playing in an elite offense and spending a lot of time in the red zone, but they’re also a result of the Rams leaning on Gurley near the goal line more so than any other team looks to their back. On the season, Gurley has 43 red zone carries, 18 more than the next-closest running back, and he’s handled 93.3 percent of the Rams’ carries inside the 10-yard line, which is one of the highest marks in the league. When McVay gets near the goal line, he lets his best offensive weapon do the work, and typically that ends with him hitting pay dirt a couple of times a game. </p>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="XnmoIS"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Six Plays That Changed NFL Week 7","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18008352/game-changing-plays-week-7-patriots-james-white-kerryon-johnson-t-y-hilton"},{"title":"The Winners and Losers From NFL Week 7","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18008072/winners-losers-week-7-justin-tucker-mitchell-trubisky"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="6rVRum">That’s all great for Gurley’s fantasy point totals, but he also influences McVay’s offense in less obvious ways. Rams quarterback Jared Goff dropped back 27 times against the Niners; 10 of those plays involved a play-action fake. That 37 percent play-action rate is <em>under </em>Goff’s mark for the entire season; he leads the league at 39.1 percent, according to Pro Football Focus. Among QBs with at least 150 dropbacks, the next-closest is Carson Wentz, at 29.8 percent. </p>
<p id="2uI8N5">McVay leans on play-action more than any other play-caller in the NFL, and his team’s 2018 rate has been historic. As recently as two years ago, no quarterback in the league who recorded more than 32 dropbacks finished above 28 percent. Not only are the Rams using play fakes at an unprecedented clip, they’ve also had an immense amount of success doing so. Against the Niners, Goff completed 77.8 percent of his play-action throws for 126 of his 202 passing yards; he averaged 14 yards per attempt on those throws with a 155.8 passer rating. Goff has been excellent in his third professional season, and it sure helps when so many chunk plays are going to wide-open receivers over the middle of the field. </p>
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<p id="Z4qljf">That effectiveness on play-action wouldn’t be possible without the multifaceted threat of Gurley in the backfield. The Rams offense succeeds in large part because of how unpredictable it is. For the most part, McVay’s scheme looks identical on nearly every snap. The Rams use 11 personnel on more than 95 percent of their plays (the highest rate in the league) and shotgun just <a href="https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/snap-rates--shotgun-v-under-center--off-.html">33 percent </a>of the time (the lowest rate in the league). They line up under center with three receivers the vast majority of the time, and, whether it’s a run or a pass, the action that follows the snap is likely going to look identical for the first few steps. McVay wants a perfect marriage between the run and the pass game, and that’s exactly what Gurley gives him. The threat of Gurley as both a runner and a receiver makes it impossible for defenses to account for what type of play is coming. Gurley isn’t a product of McVay’s system. Gurley <em>is </em>the system. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="KIUPf7">If Gurley continues at his current pace, he’ll finish the year with more than 2,250 yards from scrimmage and 32 touchdowns. Statistically, those numbers would be more than strong enough for him to win MVP. The challenge will be convincing voters that Gurley transcends the typical discourse about running backs. Quarterbacks have dominated this award in recent years partially due to an argument about the name of the award itself. If the trophy goes to the most <em>valuable </em>player, then, based on the structure of the modern game, a quarterback has to win. With the way guys like Mahomes and Drew Brees are playing this season, that trend could very well continue. But dismissing Gurley because of which position he plays misses the point. Gurley does for his offense what no other back in the NFL can. The Rams are steamrolling the rest of the league with a system built on his versatility. And if they can keep performing at this rate, Gurley will have a case that deserves to be heard.</p>
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18009198/todd-gurley-los-angeles-rams-mvp-caseRobert Mays2018-10-22T09:29:27-04:002018-10-22T09:29:27-04:00The Six Plays That Changed NFL Week 7
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<p>The Patriots had no trouble without Sony Michel or Gronk, Kerryon Johnson looks like a true feature back in Detroit, the Colts have new life, and more</p> <aside id="7nSCgI"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p class="p--has-dropcap" id="c6tnGb">If Week 7 confirmed one thing, it’s that we’re in the midst one of the wildest, most entertaining NFL seasons ever. We saw a few lopsided blowouts, sure, but the week was headlined by <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/16/17982878/weird-football-high-scoring-low-margin-victory-parity-dallas-cowboys">another</a> six one-score games and a bevy of edge-of-your-seat endings: When a Marcus Mariota touchdown pass pulled the Titans to within one point of the Chargers with 35 seconds to go, head coach Mike Vrabel opted to go for two and the win rather than play for overtime—but Mariota’s throw missed its mark. The Buccaneers beat the Browns 26-23 in overtime thanks to a 59-yard Chandler Catanzaro field goal. The Patriots survived the Bears’ last-second Hail Mary attempt by stopping receiver Kevin White at the 1-yard line after Mitchell Trubisky somehow found him in a group of defenders. The Saints beat the Ravens 24-23 when Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker missed his first extra point ever with 24 seconds to go. And the Redskins squeaked past the Cowboys 20-17 when Brett Maher bounced a 52-yard field goal try off the left upright. </p>
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<p id="gPzkrK">Those plays were just the tip of the iceberg. Sunday’s action delivered plenty of excitement and late-game thrills, but a few moments stood out as more pivotal or illuminating than the rest. Here’s a handful of the biggest game-changing plays, along with what they can tell us about both the teams involved and the season at large.</p>
<h3 id="xz1kq6">James White’s Fourth-Quarter Touchdown “Sweep”</h3>
<p id="HCclh9">The Patriots offense, already short-handed due to Rob Gronkowski’s late-week back injury, took another hit early in the second quarter, when starting running back Sony Michel went down with a knee injury. New England lacks a backup similar to Michel, who’d helped revive a listless offense the past month with a LeGarrette Blount–like physicality between the tackles—so offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady did what they do best: adapted the game plan on the fly. </p>
<p id="g69cBt">After running the ball an average of 34 times a game over the past three weeks, the Pats pivoted away from a ground-and-pound approach and made pass-catching specialist James White the focal point of the offense. The 26-year-old veteran did pick up some of the slack on the ground, running the ball <a href="https://twitter.com/SultanofStat/status/1054123481728724992">a career-high</a> 11 times for 40 yards—but made his mark through the air, leading the team in targets (10) and receptions (eight) while gaining 57 yards and scoring twice. His first touchdown—<a href="https://twitter.com/ftbeard_17/status/1054076345775415296">an option route from the 5-yard line on which he torched linebacker Leonard Floyd in the open field</a>—gave New England a 21-17 lead at the half. His second touchdown helped seal the game for good: With the Patriots leading 31-24 and 8:44 to go, White lined up on the left wing and scored on what ended up being an, uh, well-disguised sweep. Instead of sprinting across the formation as expected on this type of play, White lulled Chicago’s defense to sleep, jogging in toward Brady on what looked to be a simple motion back into the backfield; at the snap, though, he hit the afterburners, exploded down the line, and got the angle on the Bears’ edge defenders to find pay dirt. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">A short pass + a quick run = <a href="https://twitter.com/SweetFeet_White?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SweetFeet_White</a>'s second TD of the day.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEvsCHI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NEvsCHI</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoPats?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GoPats</a> <a href="https://t.co/n4mZM17e1Y">pic.twitter.com/n4mZM17e1Y</a></p>— New England Patriots (@Patriots) <a href="https://twitter.com/Patriots/status/1054102828715671552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="IMJMH4">That score pushed the Patriots’ lead to 38-24 and gave them a 97.3 percent <a href="https://live.numberfire.com/nfl/7024">win probability</a>, according to numberFire. They’d go on to hold off a Bears comeback attempt to win their fourth straight game and improve to 5-2 on the season. </p>
<p id="OY2Smb">No Gronk, no Michel, no matter: The Patriots offense, which had finally picked up steam over the past few games after getting reinforcements in the form of wide receivers Josh Gordon and Julian Edelman, didn’t revert to the listless unit we saw early in the year. White picked up the lion’s share of the slack for his injured teammates—and could keep up his production moving forward regardless of how much time Michel misses. Including <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryTMR/status/1054098279775043586">last year’s postseason</a>, White has scored 11 touchdowns in his past 10 games. He’s <a href="https://twitter.com/OliverBThomas/status/1054106712410673152">on pace to shatter career highs</a> in rushing yards, receiving yards, and total touchdowns. </p>
<h3 id="Itv1Nu">Kerryon Johnson’s 71-Yard Run</h3>
<p id="gxveJC">“Balance” is a relative term in the modern NFL—even the league’s most dedicated smashmouth teams <a href="https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/situational-run-pass-ratios--off-.html">still pass more than they run</a>—but for the Lions, balance has been a foreign concept for most of the past four seasons. That finally may be changing, thanks to the team’s retooled and mostly healthy offensive line and a new two-headed running back rotation of LeGarrette Blount and Kerryon Johnson. Blount is the type of battering ram the Lions have lacked in previous years—Detroit finished <a href="https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol2017">dead last in short-yardage and goal-line “power situations” last season</a> but leads the league in the same metric this year, <a href="https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol">according to Football Outsiders</a>—and the 31-year-old vet punched in a touchdown from 2 yards out Sunday, his third of the year. More importantly, though, Johnson has emerged as a big-play creator everywhere else on the field, showcasing explosive speed and elusiveness with the ball in his hands. </p>
<p id="yOHZu6">On the first play of the second quarter, with Detroit backed up deep into its own end, the rookie back out of Auburn took the handoff and sprinted through a crease, accelerating through Miami’s defense before getting tracked down 71 yards downfield. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/AyeyoKEJO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AyeyoKEJO</a> with 100+ yards already <a href="https://t.co/rsGGsMJXjM">pic.twitter.com/rsGGsMJXjM</a></p>— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) <a href="https://twitter.com/thecheckdown/status/1054065114385510400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="SZfjZI">On that field-flipping play, Johnson hit 21.21 miles per hour—the third-fastest speed on a rush attempt this year, <a href="https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1054079726053056512">according to NFL Next Gen Stats</a>—and took the Lions to the Dolphins’ 20-yard line and into scoring range. The drive stalled, but a Matt Prater field goal pushed the Lions’ lead to 10-0 and gave them a <a href="https://live.numberfire.com/nfl/7021">win probability of 76.9 percent</a>. They’d go on to win 32-21 and improve to 3-3. </p>
<p id="JB6ODz">Detroit racked up 35 rush attempts for 248 yards, <a href="https://twitter.com/davebirkett/status/1054088791336669185">the most for any Lions team since 1997</a>, against a strong Dolphins front that had come into the week <a href="https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef">ranked 10th in rush defense DVOA</a>. Johnson <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/17/17987530/misused-underused-players">finally got a bigger piece of the offensive pie</a>, carrying the ball a career-high 19 times for 158 yards. The team’s newfound punch in the ground game took some pressure off of quarterback Matt Stafford, who’s had to do it all for the one-dimensional Detroit offense for virtually his entire career. The Lions’ balanced, unpredictable approach kept the Dolphins on their heels while Stafford efficiently picked them apart, completing 18 of 22 passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns. The team’s passing attack—with Stafford, Golden Tate, Marvin Jones, and upcoming star Kenny Golladay—still makes up the backbone of coordinator Jim Bob Cooter’s offense. But with a viable ground game, Detroit has an insurance policy for those days when Stafford’s not at his best. The team just has to keep feeding Kerryon. </p>
<h3 id="UpyZs1">Alshon Jeffery’s 11-Yard Touchdown Catch</h3>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="j0R9wH"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Winners and Losers From NFL Week 7","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18008072/winners-losers-week-7-justin-tucker-mitchell-trubisky"},{"title":"All the Terrible Ways That Teams Lost in Week 7","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/21/18007692/week-7-losing-teams-bills-bears-hail-mary-cowboys"},{"title":"Benching Blake Bortles Won’t Save the Struggling Jaguars","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/21/18006572/blake-bortles-benched-jacksonville-jaguars"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="y3F6aD">Carson Wentz has put fears of a post–ACL tear slump to rest. The third-year quarterback, who took back the reins as the team’s starter in Week 3, notched his fourth straight strong performance Sunday, posting a 119.6 passer rating while completing 30 of 37 passes for 310 yards and two touchdowns in the Eagles’ 21-17 loss to the Panthers. He’s averaged 311 yards a game and tossed nine touchdowns and zero picks in the team’s past four outings, showing few signs his surgically repaired knee is holding him back. He’s gotten a boost from another player coming off major injury, receiver Alshon Jeffery, who returned in Week 4 to hit the ground running as the team’s mismatch-creating outside threat. </p>
<p id="dptcOs">Jeffery, who had offseason surgery to repair his rotator cuff, has been mostly unguardable in his first four games back. Sunday, the 6-foot-3, 218-pound pass catcher grabbed seven balls for 88 yards and a touchdown, which came on a second-quarter isolation route and gave the Eagles a 7-0 lead. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Alshon Jeffery or Ronaldo? <a href="https://t.co/ZE2yUH8O0o">pic.twitter.com/ZE2yUH8O0o</a></p>— Def Pen Sports (@DefPenSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/DefPenSports/status/1054067332539170816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="SOV3hW">Jeffery, who also had a leaping <a href="https://twitter.com/AdrianFedkiw/status/1054063579928936449">fourth-down sideline grab</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AdrianFedkiw/status/1054069415069782016">caught a deep bomb</a>, has emerged as more than just a complementary piece of a balanced offense. Despite the loss, he’s racked up <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryTMR/status/1054067869179359232">12 touchdowns in the past 17 games that Wentz has started</a> and is looking like a dominant no. 1 receiver for the Eagles. His chemistry with Wentz has reached a whole new level. This could be the beginning of a beautiful quarterback-receiver relationship. </p>
<h3 id="VCh2C6">Cam Newton Hits Devin Funchess for a Touchdown</h3>
<p id="s662bR">It’d be easier to get excited about the Wentz-Jeffery relationship had the Panthers not erased a 17-0 fourth-quarter deficit to come back and win the game. And Carolina needed a crucial seven-play, 87-yard touchdown drive midway through the fourth quarter to give itself a chance to do just that. </p>
<p id="aURnqR">Trailing 17-6, the Panthers got the ball back at their own 13-yard line with 6:52 to go. They went right into their no-huddle, hurry-up offense, turning up the tempo to get the Eagles on their heels. It worked: The Panthers sliced through the bewildered defense with relative ease; Newton completed five straight passes for 61 yards and added an 8-yard scramble to set up Carolina at the Philly 18-yard line. That’s when he found Funchess in the end zone on a slick double move. </p>
<div id="xjolJn">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cam ➡️ Funchess!<br><br>The Panthers close the gap to 3-pts with under 4 min to play <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CARvsPHI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CARvsPHI</a> <a href="https://t.co/wdqXs7aVsP">pic.twitter.com/wdqXs7aVsP</a></p>— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLonFOX/status/1054095221225472000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="a5497u">The drive, along with the successful two-point conversion, cut the Eagles’ lead to 17-14, took just 2:44 off the fourth-quarter clock, and gave the Panthers new life, boosting their <a href="https://live.numberfire.com/nfl/7023">win probability by 22 points</a> (to 25 percent). Newton and the Carolina offense would need another big drive—<a href="https://twitter.com/BillyM_91/status/1054095249738469377">and a huge fourth-down conversion</a>—late in the game to take the lead and seal the win, but those heroics would never have been possible without the decisive, aggressive, and, most importantly, quick scoring drive in the middle of the quarter. </p>
<p id="VXoFXL">The Panthers are perfectly built for those no-huddle looks, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they go to those more and more as the season goes on. With Newton under center and backed by über-versatile offensive weapons like Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore, and Curtis Samuel, Carolina can vary its formations and strategy without substituting by running the ball against light fronts or passing it if opponents get stuck in base looks. The Panthers have the athleticism and speed on offense to tire out teams, and the best part is they can do it all game long without hurting their defense. </p>
<p id="0AfJ3Z">The no-huddle isn’t always synonymous with the hurry-up: Even when the Panthers don’t huddle, they can still go to the line and let seconds tick off the play clock—giving Newton the time to survey the defense and get the right play dialed up. As Newton <a href="https://twitter.com/PanthersBryan/status/1054113818257866753">said after the game</a>, “Our edge at some particular times is the hurry-up. ... Hurry-up doesn’t mean panic.”</p>
<h3 id="5PAIuN">Andrew Luck Finds T.Y. Hilton for a Touchdown</h3>
<p id="Pdcvdw">Hilton <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2018/10/21/drops-disappear-ghost-t-y-hilton-re-emerges-indianapolis-colts-vs-buffalo-bills/1685782002/#/questions">wasn’t lying when he said after the game</a>, in reference to the Colts offense, that “it seemed like they missed me.”</p>
<p id="x8zZrf">During the team’s previous three games, all losses, Luck shouldered an enormous weight, throwing the ball 164 times for 1,130 yards—an average of almost 55 attempts and 376.7 yards a game—while collecting 11 touchdowns and five picks. Luck’s stat line seems more impressive knowing he did it mostly without Hilton, running back Marlon Mack, and trusty tight end Jack Doyle, all of whom missed time with hamstring injuries. Indy’s injury spate left Luck throwing to a ragtag collection of late-round picks, middling veterans, and no-namers, who combined to <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2018/10/15/indianapolis-colts-frank-reich-andrew-luck-write-fluke-dropped-passes/1603092002/">drop an unbelievable 18 passes</a> in that three-game stretch. </p>
<p id="3prnh2">Hilton’s return after two weeks out was just the spark this Colts offense needed. The 28-year-old pass catcher didn’t post an eye-popping line—just four catches for 25 yards—but he didn’t have to: He made the most of his four targets by finding the end zone twice. His first score all but put the game away and demonstrated the type of quarterback-receiver chemistry that can be earned only with years of experience together. On a third-and-4 from the 5-yard line, Luck escaped pressure, drifted to his right, and, just when it looked like he was going to throw the ball away and settle for a field goal, fired a pass through three defenders and right into Hilton’s waiting arms. </p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Andrew Luck scrambles and hits TY Hilton for a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Colts?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Colts</a> TD <a href="https://t.co/UxKri3RU2c">pic.twitter.com/UxKri3RU2c</a></p>— Def Pen Sports (@DefPenSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/DefPenSports/status/1054075626758512641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="WbW1rp">That score pushed the Colts’ lead to 21-0 and <a href="https://live.numberfire.com/nfl/7025">gave them a 98 percent win probability going into the half</a>. They coasted from there, with the help of another Hilton touchdown early in the fourth quarter. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">ANOTHER ONE FOR <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/THEGHOST?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#THEGHOST</a>! <a href="https://t.co/KCCVTH0C9k">pic.twitter.com/KCCVTH0C9k</a></p>— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) <a href="https://twitter.com/Colts/status/1054090316054056960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="YvZzVV">Mack made a huge difference for the Colts offense too. The second-year pro carried the ball 19 times for 126 yards and a touchdown, giving us a glimpse of what the Indianapolis unit can do when healthy―against a Buffalo defense that came into the week ranked third in DVOA, no less. Luck’s arm seems to have gotten stronger as the season’s worn on—there’s more zip on his passes and he’s attacking further downfield—but, crucially, he didn’t have to throw the ball 55 times for the Colts to win: The veteran passer tossed four touchdowns on just 23 attempts. </p>
<h3 id="PLTmt0">DeAndre Hopkins’s One-hander</h3>
<p id="zQJE8x">I can’t end this column without mentioning Hopkins. It’s almost trite at this point to write about how good the sixth-year pass catcher is, but he continues to make an astonishing play or two just about every week. Sunday, he lined up against cornerback Jalen Ramsey, got off the press, and separated late with a subtle push-off before reeling in the pass with one hand. </p>
<div id="Bs817Q">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">DeAndre Hopkins burns Jalen Ramsey <a href="https://t.co/R6SEnZkLzk">pic.twitter.com/R6SEnZkLzk</a></p>— 360°FantasyFootball (@360FFB) <a href="https://twitter.com/360FFB/status/1054061745692729349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="Ycch1y">Later in the game, Hopkins again beat Ramsey, this time for a touchdown. That play was the final nail in the Jaguars’ coffin. </p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">DeAndre Hopkins beats Jalen Ramsey for a 10-yard TD. His hands are insane.<a href="https://t.co/aclwZLtIsJ">pic.twitter.com/aclwZLtIsJ</a></p>— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1054081319871934464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p class="c-end-para" id="ilrL7f">For all that’s wrong with the Houston offense, including its porous offensive line, the lack of a consistent run game, and the at-times-mystifying play-calling from head coach Bill O’Brien, Hopkins continues to be the most matchup-proof, coach-proof, and just-about-every-variable-proof pass catcher in the NFL. The guy just gets it done, and he gives the Texans a chance to win every week.</p>
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18008352/game-changing-plays-week-7-patriots-james-white-kerryon-johnson-t-y-hiltonDanny Kelly2018-10-22T08:20:59-04:002018-10-22T08:20:59-04:00What the Playoffs Will Look Like in the AFC
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<p>Plus, Robert Mays and Kevin Clark list their ‘Stock Up’ and ‘Stock Down’ teams of the week</p> <div id="fgiGe2"><iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/episode/20mFyU2Mn3kI670DLMPGmE" style="width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>
<p id="XHJJZf"><a href="https://art19.com/shows/the-ringer-nfl-show/episodes/8bbffb53-cba4-43a1-99de-9272ad074144">Robert Mays and Kevin Clark link up</a> to predict what the playoffs will look like in the muddled AFC (2:00) before listing their “Stock Up” and “Stock Down” teams of the week (17:30). Then the guys throw their challenge flags on clock-management mishaps and Mitchell Trubisky’s performance before analyzing why the Jaguars’ collapse will lead tomorrow’s headlines (52:30).</p>
<p id="AweXOG"><strong>Subscribe:</strong> <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ringer-nfl-show%2Fid1109282822%3Fmt%3D2">Apple Podcasts</a> / <a href="https://art19.com/shows/the-ringer-nfl-show">Art19</a> / <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ringer/ringer-nfl-show">Stitcher</a> / <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ringernflshow">RSS</a></p>
https://www.theringer.com/2018/10/22/18008378/what-the-playoffs-will-look-like-in-the-afcRobert MaysKevin Clark2018-10-22T08:18:27-04:002018-10-22T08:18:27-04:00Guess the Lines Week 8 With Cousin Sal
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<p>Plus: World Series talk and Parent Corner</p> <p id="I1XOzm"><a href="https://art19.com/shows/the-bill-simmons-podcast/episodes/172719b9-aeaa-4872-a7b3-04e8f4335ba6">Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss</a> the moneyline murder that was the Chiefs-Bengals showdown, Cowboys heartbreak, and Patriots-Bears before guessing the NFL lines for Week 8. They finish up with some World Series talk and Parent Corner.</p>
<div id="gJpHp6"><iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/episode/4bP7o18FCZehAFC9oTjJMA" style="width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>
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https://www.theringer.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/2018/10/22/18008390/guess-the-lines-week-8-with-cousin-salBill Simmons2018-10-22T02:07:27-04:002018-10-22T02:07:27-04:00The Winners and Losers From NFL Week 7
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<p>Mitchell Trubisky is an elite runner, but not so elite on Hail Mary attempts. Plus: If you hear a long snapper’s name, it’s most likely not because he’s a winner.</p> <aside id="6jQaGx"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p id="3LIvbd"><em>Every week this NFL season, we will celebrate the electric plays, investigate the colossal blunders, and explain the inexplicable moments of the most recent slate. Welcome to Winners and Losers. Which one are you?</em></p>
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<h3 id="NO9rwv">Winner: Extreme Unlikelihoods</h3>
<p id="CliqlV">I urge everybody in New Orleans to buy Mega Millions tickets. A $1.6 billion jackpot! Odds say you’re less likely to win than you are to have a cartoon piano fall on your head, but I assure you, it will be a sound financial investment. Something just as unlikely just went New Orleans’s way on Sunday.</p>
<p id="d6zNl6">The Saints led the Ravens 24-17 in the game of the weekend, a matchup between New Orleans’s top-scoring offense and Baltimore’s top-scoring defense. All the excitement was focused on that offense facing that defense—not so much on perpetually scattershot Joe Flacco against the Saints defense. But that was the important matchup at the crux of the game, and—miracle of miracles—Flacco came through. He led the Ravens on a six-play, 81-yard scoring drive in the game’s final two minutes, knotting the game at 24. </p>
<p id="OfHxPC">Or, uh, coming close to knotting the game at 24. Flacco threw a touchdown to John Brown to make the score 24-23, and then it was time for Justin Tucker to kick an extra point. And Justin Tucker literally always makes extra points. He’d made all 222 he’d attempted in his career. Actually, that’s gotta be a lie: I’m entirely confident Tucker had made at least 250,000 extra points in his career. He’s <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/fg_perc_career.htm">the most accurate kicker of all time</a>, drills 50-yarders like they’re chip shots, and <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/8/22/16182552/justin-tucker-baltimore-ravens-70-yard-field-goal">believes he can hit a 70-yarder</a>. He’s the most talented kicker I’ve ever seen, and I pay attention to stuff like that! Don’t ship things with UPS: Pay Justin Tucker to kick your items across the country, and they will arrive exactly where you want them to within a few seconds. (You might not want to ship valuables this way.)</p>
<p id="HCI0Sf">Surely, there was no way he’d miss an extra point at such a critical moment. That’d be like if gravity stopped working. It’d be like if gravity stopped working at the exact moment I really needed to throw a bag of my dog’s poop into a trash can, and instead the poop just floated upward and smacked me in the face. That’s how unlikely and unfortunate that miss would be. </p>
<p id="thVE2D">Tucker was such a sure thing that the announcer could surely talk about how sure of a thing he was right before attempting the kick. There was no way he could miss. </p>
<p id="lJQdqQ">Yeah, he missed. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The announcer just jinxed the hell out of Justin Tucker! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NOvsBAL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NOvsBAL</a> <a href="https://t.co/U7gA3L25kI">pic.twitter.com/U7gA3L25kI</a></p>— History of Sports (@BeforeFamePics) <a href="https://twitter.com/BeforeFamePics/status/1054147714588520448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="cEakYc">I don’t know exactly what happened on this kick. Tucker seemed to hit it fine, and about 25 yards into its flight, the ball’s Waze app told it to make a right. And that was that. Tucker had missed his first-ever extra point, and the Ravens lost. </p>
<p id="hGtnM4">Tucker widened his eyes as wide as he could possibly widen them, with his eyelids flying off the top of his forehead and into outer space. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Justin Tucker had never missed an extra point in his NFL career (222-222).<br><br>24-23 with 24 seconds left - his first miss ... WOW <br> : FOX <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NOvsBAL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NOvsBAL</a><a href="https://t.co/tiHCBUDXWT">pic.twitter.com/tiHCBUDXWT</a></p>— ESPN (@espn) <a href="https://twitter.com/espn/status/1054149677485080578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="orIhdJ">There’s some precedent here—a few years back, <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2016/1/24/10823144/stephen-gostkowski-missed-extra-point-broncos-patriots-afc-championship">Stephen Gostkowski missed his first extra point in nine years in a playoff game the Patriots lost by two</a>. But that wasn’t on the last kick of the game like Tucker’s. This is a football unlikelihood on par with Tony Romo’s botched hold, although the importance of the game is obviously lesser here. The simplest thing, with such a high chance of success, went wrong at the exact moment it couldn’t. We shouldn’t expect anything like it ever again—although of course, that’s why it will be just as fascinating the next time football throws us a loop this strange. </p>
<h3 id="zGvGsq">Loser: Most of the Eagles’ Soccer Players</h3>
<p id="dudppf">Alshon Jeffery scored a touchdown in the Eagles’ game Sunday, and then he scored a goal. And that’s when things got problematic:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/julieertz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@julieertz</a>, how'd <a href="https://twitter.com/ZERTZ_86?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ZERTZ_86</a> do here?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyEaglesFly?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyEaglesFly</a> <a href="https://t.co/urJqM4z45t">pic.twitter.com/urJqM4z45t</a></p>— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) <a href="https://twitter.com/Eagles/status/1054076020863705088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="LtC52g">We’ve talked repeatedly in this space about how the Eagles are the masters of the post-touchdown celebration—a mastery that I believe helped them to a Super Bowl. They went bowling; they played baseball. But this soccer celebration shows why things are amiss for Philadelphia this year. Let’s break down what’s wrong here:</p>
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<li id="aBfPFK">First off, let’s talk about the defensive strategy of Nelson Agholor, the player at the far left of the defensive wall. He sticks both of his arms directly upward into the air. If Agholor were to block Jeffery’s shot with his hands during an actual soccer game, he would almost certainly get punished with a red card for a deliberate handball, resulting in his ejection and likely a penalty for Jeffery’s team. Just awful strategy.</li>
<li id="Oip8Db">The Eagles made the odd decision to let Jeffery’s goal come at the expense of his own teammates. He’s not just scoring—he’s scoring over his fellow receivers, and past quarterback-turned-goalie Carson Wentz, who dives to save the imaginary shot in vain. Why would the Eagles <em>choose</em> to have one of their players embarrass so many of his teammates in an imaginary sport?</li>
<li id="Qy4Ioi">In spite of the fact that all the Eagles players are hypothetical opponents of Jeffery, they all instantly decide to celebrate his goal. The Eagles think that the important thing is celebrating their teammate’s accomplishment, not acting out the soccer game. But their actions serve the opposite purpose: Instead of making it look like Jeffery scored a cool goal, they reveal that the entire soccer game was a sham. </li>
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<p id="ktcZBL">This celebration reveals all sorts of problems with the Eagles: They have a lack of attention to detail. Jeffery might have scored a goal, but we don’t even know what this team’s goals are supposed to be—are the non-Jeffery Eagles trying to stop Jeffery or were they rooting for him all along? This is a team without a clear direction.</p>
<p id="qskxFo">In the fourth quarter, the Eagles gave up 21 unanswered points and lost, and it’s not surprising. A team that can’t commit to a celebration can’t commit to winning.</p>
<h3 id="bRxg5g">Winner: Mitchell Trubisky’s Legs</h3>
<p id="YkYUIv">Do you know the legend of Crazy Legs Trubisky? The Carolina Camaro? It is unfolding in front of our very eyes. The Chicago Cheetah had the greatest run of his career on Sunday. It went 8 yards, or maybe 70 yards:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow. Wow. Wowwwwwwwwwww.<a href="https://twitter.com/Mtrubisky10?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Mtrubisky10</a> makes a little magic happen and finds the end zone for the <a href="https://twitter.com/ChicagoBears?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@chicagobears</a>!<br><br> : CBS <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DaBears?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DaBears</a> <a href="https://t.co/i33EuxHtuk">pic.twitter.com/i33EuxHtuk</a></p>— NFL (@NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1054065638631587840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mitchell Trubisky covered 71.9 yards of distance on his 8-yard touchdown run, the most scramble distance a quarterback has covered on any play this season.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEvsCHI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NEvsCHI</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DaBears?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DaBears</a> <a href="https://t.co/dTT3QJYZe9">pic.twitter.com/dTT3QJYZe9</a></p>— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) <a href="https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1054070382397861888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="xTlzaG">But Trubisky’s running Sunday wasn’t all horizontal—he also had a 39-yard run, the second-longest by any quarterback on the season. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/Mtrubisky10?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Mtrubisky10</a> on the move!<br><br>Making defenders miss and gaining all sorts of yards <br><br> : CBS <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DaBears?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DaBears</a> <a href="https://t.co/Mh3qYNDTeD">pic.twitter.com/Mh3qYNDTeD</a></p>— NFL (@NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1054085178765627392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="ZMs79n">Trubisky finished the day with 81 rushing yards, the most of any player in Bears-Patriots and the second most by any quarterback this year (Dak Prescott had 82 last week). This isn’t a weird outlier! Trubisky is a legitimate dual-threat QB. He ran a 4.67 at the combine (.01 seconds behind elite runner Deshaun Watson). The Bears have themselves a true playmaker!</p>
<h3 id="hmZeZA">Loser: Mitchell Trubisky’s Arm</h3>
<p id="3mLexu">One problem: Trubisky made some of the worst red zone throws imaginable. He threw two interceptions on Sunday, but it could’ve been three or four or five:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Another risky throw for Trubisky to end zone <a href="https://t.co/Gfw5sicguS">pic.twitter.com/Gfw5sicguS</a></p>— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWaldman/status/1054139540145868800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mitchell Trubisky: This RZ behavior has to stop. <a href="https://t.co/vy10dCmKFT">pic.twitter.com/vy10dCmKFT</a></p>— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWaldman/status/1054122805153935362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Same drive, same issue for Trubisky. Broken recor...err, corrupted downloa...you get it. <a href="https://t.co/7P3vcEanhj">pic.twitter.com/7P3vcEanhj</a></p>— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWaldman/status/1054124539364413443?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="pPxdGO">The Bears had a chance to tie the game on a last-ditch Hail Mary, and Trubisky’s throw was actually caught … short of the end zone. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Hail Mary Heartbreaker <a href="https://t.co/0hzPyrDCWp">pic.twitter.com/0hzPyrDCWp</a></p>— Taylor Snow (@taylorcsnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorcsnow/status/1054106449767477250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="2jwMC1">On the one hand, Trubisky threw the ball 60 damn yards in the air, and it landed in a teammate’s hands. That’s the hard part of Hail Marys! On the other, he threw a Hail Mary that did not have enough power to make it to the end zone, which is really the whole point of Hail Marys. It almost feels more embarrassing to throw a Hail Mary that gets caught and winds up short than to throw one that just flops to the ground hopelessly, even though the throw was a miracle. </p>
<p id="fWDtJ3">It’s sort of a metaphor for the whole game: We should be happy that the Bears offense was almost good enough to beat the Patriots, the best team of the millennium, in a game where New England got two special teams touchdowns. They did the hard part, and yet Trubisky’s failures make the whole thing so much more frustrating.</p>
<h3 id="yOyjlb">Loser: The Reputation of Long Snappers Everywhere</h3>
<p id="eosWmW">If you hear a long snapper’s name, it is bad. Long snappers have one job: snapping the ball quickly and accurately on field goals and punts. (Really, it’s two jobs, but they’re very similar.) Normally, they are mentioned only when they snap the ball poorly and it leads to a botched attempt. But that didn’t even happen to Cowboys snapper L.P. Ladouceur, who was either the culprit of an unusual penalty at an unforgivable time or the victim of a massive miscarriage of officiating justice. </p>
<p id="aBKD3H">Dallas was lining up for a game-tying 47-yard field goal to send the game to overtime, but before the kick, long snapper L.P. Ladouceur was called for a “snap infraction.” That turned the 47-yard game-tying field goal attempt into a 52-yard game-tying field goal attempt, and that 52-yard game-tying field goal attempt doinked as the Redskins won, 20-17. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan Bailey's somewhere sitting back & laughing at the Cowboys right now <a href="https://t.co/sMRKs6EBBF">pic.twitter.com/sMRKs6EBBF</a></p>— New Account (@ftbeard_17) <a href="https://twitter.com/ftbeard_17/status/1054153653987139584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="VoU4q2">Soon, the scurrying began: What, exactly, is, a “snap infraction”? Unfortunately for anybody who looked, those two words don’t appear anywhere in the rulebook. Essentially, it’s an official-sounding way of talking about a false start committed by the center, and goes down in the official game book as a false start. The rulebook says that offensive players aren’t allowed to make any “quick, abrupt movement” to “simulate the start of a snap,” and that also applies to the center. According to the league’s officiating office, Ladouceur did this when he slightly tilted the ball before his snap:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">“The illegal ball movement by the center in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DALvsWAS?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DALvsWAS</a> causes the defense to come across the neutral zone and contact a lineman.” -AL <a href="https://t.co/Cv8Ugwb99p">pic.twitter.com/Cv8Ugwb99p</a></p>— NFL Officiating (@NFLOfficiating) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLOfficiating/status/1054155489578233856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="BSYq8N">One problem, though: Ladouceur does this every time he snaps the ball, and he snaps the ball every time the Cowboys kick a field goal or extra point, and the motion never gets called. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/TonyDungy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TonyDungy</a> confirms it- <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cowboys?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cowboys</a> got screwed. <a href="https://t.co/6xPNpVZT9x">pic.twitter.com/6xPNpVZT9x</a></p>— Shan Shariff (@1053SS) <a href="https://twitter.com/1053SS/status/1054192656501346305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2018</a>
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<p id="EDtRxX">I don’t think Ladouceur did anything illegal. He made a nonquick, nonabrupt motion that did not simulate the start of a play. But when he did, a Washington player sprinted across the line of scrimmage. That player should have been called for going offside; instead, the official blamed Ladouceur. </p>
<p id="4Ol0NV">This stunned the Cowboys. Ladouceur has been the team’s snapper since 2005 and has never botched a snap. (“<a href="https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/2018/06/11/dallas-cowboys-lp-ladouceur-2018-player-profile/">Best snapper since Thanos</a>,” <em>USA Today</em>’s Cowboys vertical said this summer.) Ladouceur, too, was stunned: In his words, he’s never been called for this. “<a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25049362/dallas-cowboys-lose-snap-infraction-call-field-goal-attempt-foisted-upright">Exact same thing I’ve been doing for 14 years,” Ladouceur said</a>. “Never had that before.” </p>
<p id="QcQbTG">However, I must report that the Cowboys’ long snapper is a LIAR. He has been called for false starts at least three times, <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/L/LadoL.20/penalties">according to Pro-Football-Reference.com</a>: once against the Broncos in 2005, once during a 2011 Thanksgiving game, and once during a 2014 playoff game against the Packers. I watched the video of both, to confirm that Ladouceur has been called for similar pre-snap motions. </p>
<p id="C3pOJU">I don’t know whom to believe. I thought the official pretty clearly made a wrong call, but then I fact-checked Ladouceur’s claim that he’d never been penalized. I’m not sure I can ever trust a long snapper again.</p>
<h3 id="9pDuVd">Winner: The Jacksonville Jaguars</h3>
<p id="0ggugc">It has been a stunning fall for the Jaguars. The dudes from Duval appeared in last season’s AFC championship game and started 2018 3-1 with a win over the Patriots—you know, the team that won last season’s AFC championship game. It wasn’t unreasonable to think the team with the league’s best defense could be en route to the Super Bowl. And now they’re 3-4, with three straight multiscore losses. On Sunday, they fell 20-7 to the Houston Texans, and it was the third straight game in which the Jags were shut out in the first half. </p>
<p id="wJgBhc">But wait: I just said the Jags were shut out in the first half, but the final score was 20-7. How’d that happen? Simple: In the second half, the Jaguars <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/21/18006572/blake-bortles-benched-jacksonville-jaguars">benched quarterback Blake Bortles</a> and put in backup Cody Kessler. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Cody Kessler touchdown<a href="https://t.co/Yk1JK7KuLu">pic.twitter.com/Yk1JK7KuLu</a></p>— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/status/1054088343347171328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="dCgo0n">Kessler is not the answer to the Jaguars’ problems. His career numbers, primarily with the 2016 Browns are … well, you really don’t need to know what they are, you just need to know they happened with the 2016 Browns. </p>
<p id="RVwJ2r">But I’m still massively encouraged by Sunday, because for the first time in Bortles’s entire career, the Jaguars considered a pathway to success that doesn’t involve Bortles. Bortles entered Sunday ranked 28th in the NFL in QB rating, 27th in adjusted yards per attempt, 25th in interception percentage, and—hold on, it’s getting hot in here!—24th in touchdown percentage. Pro Football Focus, apparently the Bortles optimists, see something in Bortles that the stats don’t, grading Bortles out at a skyscraping 23rd best in the league. The Jaguars should be good—entering Sunday, they were allowing just 4.9 yards per play, the third best in the league—but they’ve been starting Bortles. Same story last year: Jacksonville’s defense was the best in the league, and its quarterback was Bortles. </p>
<p id="b5QMtZ">And yet the Jaguars have doubled and tripled down on Bortles. He got <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000917453/article/jaguars-sign-blake-bortles-to-3year-54m-contract">a major contract extension</a> in the offseason, and on Sunday, Adam Schefter reported that the Jags’ front office <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25041041/jacksonville-jaguars-not-considering-trade-qb-challenge-blake-bortles">believed Bortles was “the least of [Jacksonville’s] issues.”</a> He is, uh, arguably the biggest of Jacksonville’s issues. </p>
<p id="Sh40sQ">We’re in an era when quarterback-efficiency records are getting broken weekly. <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/10/17958238/quarterback-trend-easy-difficulty-jared-goff-drew-brees-patrick-mahomes">There’s not a dearth of talented quarterbacks, but a glut</a>. With the right scheme, you can win the Super Bowl with a backup. It’s not that the Jaguars are incapable of succeeding with Bortles—they were really close to making the Super Bowl with him last year! But it’s foolish that the Jaguars have invested so damn much in him in spite of the fact that he’s never been an even average quarterback. He’s replaceable. And Sunday, the Jaguars realized that, if only briefly. </p>
<h3 id="Ebu1PJ">Loser: People Who Like Sleep and Have Melvin Gordon in Fantasy Football</h3>
<p id="pb3uAh">The weirdest thing about the NFL’s London games is how commonplace they seem. The league is choosing to play games overseas, a production that involves sending hundreds of players, staffers, and referees as well as literal tons of equipment across an ocean, and it’s not for a special occasion. It’s not a big season-opening game, as has happened in the NHL and MLB. It’s not a preseason tour, as big European soccer clubs do in the United States. It’s not an exhibition game, as the NFL used to do in Japan. It’s just regular-season games—not even particularly special regular-season games. Just regular ones, a few times per year. I suppose that’s the point: Someday, the NFL hopes that games in foreign countries will be so accepted that they’re just part of the NFL routine. But for now, it’s strange that they play games on a different continent and it’s just supposed to be one of the hundreds of notable things about an NFL game day. </p>
<p id="xlskOI">Another weird thing about the NFL in London: They haven’t figured out what time the games are supposed to be. There have been 23 NFL London games, and 10 of them have been at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time (to account for the fact that it’s five hours later in London than it is in the Eastern time zone) and 11 have been at 1 p.m., the same time as all the other games. The league <a href="http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/04/20/nfl-continues-with-three-930-a-m-et-games-in-london/">has considered getting rid of the 9:30 a.m. starts</a>, but has kept them for some games, because the league enjoys having four full game windows on Sundays, and that time slot allows for viewership in Asia. </p>
<p id="NdynLt">Long story short: We’ve come to stop noticing when there are games in London, and even when we do know that there are games in London, we don’t know what time they are. I’m an NFL writer and I didn’t realize there was a game at 9:30 a.m. Sunday until I checked the upcoming schedule on a whim Saturday night.</p>
<p id="lGINgu">All this to explain why Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of fans across America woke up to find that their fantasy football Sunday had been ruined. Melvin Gordon, the second-most-valuable fantasy football player this year (fifth in total fantasy points, second among flex players behind Todd Gurley) was ruled out of the Chargers’ Sunday-morning game in London about an hour and a half before kickoff—8 a.m. on the East Coast, 5 a.m. on the West Coast. Gordon had shown no signs of injury in recent weeks—he posted 33 fantasy points last week—and wasn’t even listed as questionable on the Chargers’ injury report until Friday after he hurt his hamstring in practice. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="DHdBM7">I think this is one of the greatest fantasy football catastrophes in history. Most Gordon owners had no reason to suspect he could be pulled from the game, and even those that did probably had little idea that they needed to wake up four hours earlier than usual to set their fantasy lineups. Congrats to those who won their matchups because of this unusual confluence of events; congrats to everybody else on the sleep. It’s Sunday: You’re supposed to sleep. Or watch 15 hours of football. </p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/22/18008072/winners-losers-week-7-justin-tucker-mitchell-trubiskyRodger Sherman2018-10-21T23:04:52-04:002018-10-21T23:04:52-04:00All the Terrible Ways That Teams Lost in Week 7
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<img alt="NFL: New Orleans Saints at Baltimore Ravens" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uRM3q7FGTAu5CD1H-5fYUCWHXM4=/107x0:2067x1470/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61858281/usa_today_11492912.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>From a missed extra point to a short Hail Mary to a five-point scorigami, Sunday’s losers found new ways to rip defeat from the jaws of (possible) victory</p> <aside id="R4M7Ql"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p id="CwiNCC">The last few years of NFL football have been packed with innovation. <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/8/14/17687896/run-pass-option-evolution-chiefs-eagles-college-offense">Run-pass options</a> became the play du jour last season, but it doesn’t stop there. <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2018/8/14/17687380/college-offense-nfl-pro-system-college-effect-day">College concepts</a>, <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/25/17899586/the-scheme-war-is-over">spread schemes</a>, and <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/8/15/17693024/minnesota-vikings-facility-technology-data-analytics-rick-spielman-draft">advanced analytics</a> are changing football as we know it. But while most of the league’s recent innovations have helped create an explosion on offense—and thus, helped teams win football games—Week 7 showcased how NFL squads are finding newer, more modern ways to lose. </p>
<p id="Z3NcJw">This week, we had losses come as a result of a missed two-point attempt, a missed extra point, a missed field goal, a disastrous fourth quarter, and more. It was weird (and the Giants and Falcons don’t even play until Monday night!). Here’s a rundown of all the ways teams taught us to lose in Week 7:</p>
<h3 id="DyXGpq">Extra Points Aren’t Automatic: Ravens 23, Saints 24</h3>
<p id="LCn20x">Justin Tucker is the NFL’s best kicker. He came into Sunday with 214 career field goals made, which is the most in the league since he entered the NFL in 2012. He’s made 89.9 percent of his field goals in that span, which is third among players with at least 100 attempts, and he’s made a league-leading 36 kicks of 50 or more yards in those six and a half seasons. He <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/8/22/16182552/justin-tucker-baltimore-ravens-70-yard-field-goal">dreams of hitting a 70-yarder</a>. He’s made two All-Pro teams, and, after two extra-point kicks on Sunday against the Saints, had made 222 in a row—he’d never missed even a single one in his entire career.</p>
<p id="n8xvIU">Tucker’s reliability made it seem like a no-brainer that Ravens-Saints would go into overtime after the Baltimore offense drove down the field in the final two minutes and Joe Flacco tossed a touchdown to John Brown with just 24 seconds left on the clock. That TD made the score 23-24, and an extra point is often just a formality for most NFL kickers—even since the NFL moved the kicks back to the 15-yard line in 2015. For Tucker, they seem like a pointless ritual. Then this happened:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Justin Tucker misses an extra point for the first time in his career - he was previously 222 for 222 - as Saints hold off Ravens in final minute. <a href="https://t.co/2BuiPB8gpC">https://t.co/2BuiPB8gpC</a> <a href="https://t.co/jYVrIregqS">pic.twitter.com/jYVrIregqS</a></p>— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) <a href="https://twitter.com/usatodaysports/status/1054152182310887425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="G2cw6k">Extra points are more automatic to Tucker than anything I do in my life. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to correctly pull my car out of the driveway 222 times in a row. I probably can’t spell my name right 222 times in a row. Last week I tried to make a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and I dropped one half of it, jelly side down. Even the simplest, most routine tasks have a chance of failure, but for six and a half seasons, Tucker had been perfect. So it’s understandable that when he missed that kick, he looked like a kid who’d just found out that Santa Claus isn’t real. It’s like the fabric of his reality had been torn in two.</p>
<div id="8HBO9V">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Justin Tucker had never missed an extra point in his NFL career (222-222).<br><br>24-23 with 24 seconds left - his first miss ... WOW <br> : FOX <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NOvsBAL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NOvsBAL</a><a href="https://t.co/tiHCBUDXWT">pic.twitter.com/tiHCBUDXWT</a></p>— ESPN (@espn) <a href="https://twitter.com/espn/status/1054149677485080578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="eCLkPM">As far as ways to lose a game go, missing an extra point in the final seconds will always be confounding and—depending on your rooting interests—hilarious. But when that missed kick comes from <em>Justin Tucker</em>, it enters a whole other dimension of WTF.</p>
<h3 id="CJbZyJ">Right Decision, Wrong Call: Titans 19, Chargers 20</h3>
<p id="hNWiJU">As the seconds ticked away near the end of the Titans-Chargers game in London, Marcus Mariota and the Tennessee offense put together a masterful drive to move the ball 89 yards in 13 plays, finally scoring a touchdown when Mariota found tight end Luke Stocker on a 1-yard pass. That made the score 19-20 with 31 seconds left, and Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, who <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/titans-wont-play-tie-mike-vrabel-goes-fourth-ot-team-wins-205357140.html">has a history of playing to avoid ties</a>, decided the Titans should go for the two-point conversion rather than kick a game-tying PAT. A conversion would give the Titans a one-point lead and an almost certain victory, given how little time was left on the clock. A failure would mean that the Titans would instantly lose (outside of a miracle onside kick recovery). The Titans didn’t get it. They lost.</p>
<p id="NNQ7Ye">The decision to go for two was hyperaggressive, especially for the historically risk-averse NFL, but it was the correct move. The Titans were 6.5-point underdogs, so a chance to win the game on one play serves them better than an extended overtime in which there will be more chances for the better team—the Chargers—to secure the victory. If a coach thinks he has a better than 50-50 shot, going for two is the right decision, and the leaguewide conversion rate usually hovers around 50 percent. With a mobile QB like Mariota, the Titans had multiple ways to score; they easily could have had a high chance of converting with the right play call. And that’s where the problem lies. Here’s the play that the Titans ran:</p>
<div id="IUKCSu"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 55.6328%;"><iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/5z2ehwO3QOhoL9XQ2I?html5=true&hideSocial=true" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="g3NTdK">Historically, run plays are better than pass plays for any two-point conversion, because running backs <a href="http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2010/12/almost-always-go-for-2-point.html">will find success just under 60 percent of the time</a>. But if a team is set on passing, it should at least put a running back in the backfield to keep the defense on its toes. The Titans didn’t do that — they sent Dion Lewis in motion, but their play design telegraphed a pass from the beginning. That’d be disappointing for any two-point conversion play call, but it’s even more egregious because of a Chargers holding penalty on the play before, which put the ball on the 1-yard line, not the 2. And the best way to get 1 yard in the NFL is to just do what’s obvious: a QB sneak.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">QB sneak is the most successful way to get one yard. You also have a QB who can run option. Twice you need one yard and twice you pass. I appreciate the first one worked but it’s one of the rare times when running is MORE efficient.</p>— Aaron Schatz (@FO_ASchatz) <a href="https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/1054047450149908483?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="2mpFU1">Instead, the Titans ran an uninspired slant route intended for Taywan Taylor. If they aren’t going to QB sneak or commit to a different kind of rush, this is the area of the field where offensive coaching staffs need to get creative and make use of all the horizontal space available when the vertical space is so limited. Vrabel, didn’t you learn anything from Philly Philly?</p>
<h3 id="GN49gX">No, Mitch, Hail Marys Need Go Into the End Zone: Bears 31, Patriots 38</h3>
<p id="OIj1AB">This was Bears receiver Kevin White’s second reception of the season:</p>
<div id="Cid0r1">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">A HAIL MARY <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEvsCHI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NEvsCHI</a><br><br>( : <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NFL</a>) <a href="https://t.co/OOmoexP8rb">pic.twitter.com/OOmoexP8rb</a></p>— theScore (@theScore) <a href="https://twitter.com/theScore/status/1054106727807901697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="Yor1Ui">Completed Hail Marys are basically pure luck. This isn’t Julio Jones, or Odell Beckham Jr., or DeAndre Hopkins making this play, and it isn’t <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2017/1/13/16076974/nfl-green-bay-packers-aaron-rodgers-hail-mary-magic-2d51a21727dd">Aaron Rodgers</a> or Drew Brees or Patrick Mahomes II making the throw. It’s a struggling second-year QB throwing generally in the direction of the end zone, and an oft-injured, now mostly irrelevant third-year wideout just happening to be in the right spot to catch it. There is no real rhyme or reason for which Hail Marys are completed and which are not—you can’t convince me that there’s a special science to how these plays work. That’s why we call them Hail Marys—they’re prayers.</p>
<p id="yB6t2r">That said, maybe Mitchell Trubisky wants to put his next Hail Mary attempt in the end zone? Just a thought.</p>
<h3 id="qCYg7Q">Doink: Cowboys 17, Redskins 20</h3>
<p id="lWkhYa">Washington nearly put on a clinic in how to lose, as they led by 10 points with under two minutes remaining and came close to choking the game away. But the Cowboys beat them to it. After Dak Prescott scored on a 1-yard run to make the game 20-17, their defense forced a three-and-out and got the ball back with 1:09 left. The Dallas offense drove 36 yards and lined up for a 47-yard field goal, which is well within rookie kicker Brett Maher’s range. Then Cowboys long snapper L.P. Ladouceur got called for a (questionable) false-start penalty that pushed the kick back 5 yards. It was his first penalty <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/L/LadoL.20/penalties">since 2015</a>.</p>
<p id="L2Jlbf">That made it a 52-yard attempt for Maher, which is still makeable—he came into today 3-for-3 on 50-plus-yard kicks this season. But given that this is a piece about losing, well, just listen to the sound this makes:</p>
<div id="zsVv41">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">FINAL:<a href="https://twitter.com/Redskins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Redskins</a> 20<a href="https://twitter.com/dallascowboys?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dallascowboys</a> 17<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NFL</a> <a href="https://t.co/z6UgbZILE4">pic.twitter.com/z6UgbZILE4</a></p>— Federico González (@federix12) <a href="https://twitter.com/federix12/status/1054153544595656704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="2HxoH1">A missed 52-yard field goal would be forgivable, but this kick didn’t have to be so hard. Beyond the holding penalty, the Cowboys played as conservative as possible in the final minute of the game. Dallas already had the ball at Washington’s 46 with 52 seconds left in the game and a timeout remaining—plenty of time to set up a chip-shot field goal. Prescott completed a couple of short passes to Cole Beasley, and then, with 12 seconds remaining, the Cowboys ran the ball for 2 yards. They could have taken some shots to give their kicker an easier chance—<a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/16/17982414/aaron-rodgers-green-bay-packers-san-francisco-49ers-comeback">like Aaron Rodgers did last Monday night</a>. Instead, they settled for a much tougher kick than they needed to, and they lost because of it.</p>
<h3 id="Ki8lM8">Maybe Don’t Give Up Three Touchdowns in the Fourth: Eagles 17, Panthers 21</h3>
<p id="2ZsPPz">The Eagles were up 17-0 entering the fourth quarter, so it looked like they had the Panthers in hand. Here’s how the next three Carolina drives went:</p>
<ul>
<li id="D8qtWe">11 plays, 80 yards, touchdown (began in the third quarter)</li>
<li id="BcabjR">7 plays, 87 yards, touchdown</li>
<li id="QndcpR">10 plays, 69 yards, touchdown</li>
</ul>
<p id="VfTFqJ">And here’s how the Eagles did:</p>
<ul>
<li id="igke4D">6 plays, 22 yards, punt</li>
<li id="DhHseR">3 plays, zero yards, punt</li>
<li id="cyWFor">4 plays, 48 yards, fumble</li>
</ul>
<p id="vQYxxY">This is just a classic collapse. The Eagles had a greater-than 97 percent chance to win this game in the third quarter, <a href="http://www.numberfire.com/nfl/games/2018/week-7/7023/philadelphia-eagles-vs-carolina-panthers-2018-10-21/live">per NumberFire</a>, indicating that just about everything had to go wrong for them to lose. And everything went wrong. Philly even was gifted the ball after an Eric Reid interception was overturned upon review—but it really doesn’t seem to me like the ball hit the ground. Take a look:</p>
<div id="nWEtdq">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Call is reversed. No interception for Eric Reid. Dang <a href="https://t.co/xbwUa4ZVIs">pic.twitter.com/xbwUa4ZVIs</a></p>— Panthers 24/7 (@Panthers24_7) <a href="https://twitter.com/Panthers24_7/status/1054098594775601153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="vpssHx">Three plays after that, the ball was on the Carolina 14-yard line. Facing a fourth-and-2 with 31 seconds left and needing a touchdown to take the lead, Carson Wentz was strip-sacked by Julius Peppers. I guess it’s true: The ball don’t lie. </p>
<h3 id="Ym87AR">When Both Teams Seem to Want to Lose: Browns 23, Buccaneers 26</h3>
<p id="hXbxpI">If we ran this column every week, we’d just pencil the Browns in at this point. Cleveland has played in four overtime games in seven contests, and it had a fifth that was tied in the fourth quarter. The Bucs, though, gave the Browns a run for their money in terms of who could lose this game.</p>
<p id="56NAtC">Almost everything about the final few minutes in Browns-Bucs was inexplicable. Tampa Bay allowed the Browns to return a punt 32 yards with under three minutes left, Baker Mayfield threw a 16-yard touchdown pass on the very next play, and after the extra point, the game was tied. Then the Bucs missed a 40-yard field goal as time expired.</p>
<p id="ONQINV">In overtime, the Browns and Bucs punted a combined three times, Tampa Bay QB Jameis Winston threw an interception, and Cleveland returner Jabrill Peppers fumbled on a punt. With under two minutes left in overtime, we were, for the millionth time this season, on Browns Tie Watch. It was like no one wanted the victory! Then Bucs kicker Chandler Catanzaro—who had missed just minutes before—hit a 59-yard field goal, and we got this:</p>
<div id="cMMZT3">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Losing on a walk-off 58 yard field goal in overtime will do something to a guy.<br><br>Wow. <a href="https://t.co/80tDhJn7NT">pic.twitter.com/80tDhJn7NT</a></p>— The Ringer (@ringer) <a href="https://twitter.com/ringer/status/1054111423977074688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="BrU4gm">At 2-4-1, the Browns are having a tough season. They easily could have a much better record. But at least they’re giving us <a href="https://twitter.com/ringer/status/1054115202986196992">memes</a>. </p>
<h3 id="trWB4M">Derek Anderson Is Still in the NFL?: Bills 5, Colts 37</h3>
<p class="c-end-para" id="s0SYLU">Not all interesting losses have to come in the final few minutes. Sometimes, a team starts its third-string quarterback and he throws three interceptions and the team scores five points. Buffalo has an injured bad quarterback and two healthy bad quarterbacks, which would be mean of me to point out, but they <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/13/17855420/buffalo-bills-bad-josh-allen-nathan-peterman">did this to themselves</a>.</p>
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/21/18007692/week-7-losing-teams-bills-bears-hail-mary-cowboysRiley McAtee2018-10-21T17:55:49-04:002018-10-21T17:55:49-04:00Benching Blake Bortles Won’t Save the Struggling Jaguars
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<img alt="Houston Texans v Jacksonville Jaguars" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sotQcqHGaEKbe0P3IzRJoJ2BlZY=/0x0:2655x1991/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61855903/1052695156.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Jacksonville has accepted that it has a quarterback problem, but doesn’t seem to have any solutions</p> <aside id="LxYm44"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everything You Need to Know About Week 7 of the 2018 NFL Season ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/19/17999282/everything-you-need-to-know-about-week-7-of-the-2018-nfl-season"}]}'></div></aside><p id="5karQY">The Jacksonville Jaguars, who have been in denial about their quarterback situation for the better part of this decade, finally admitted they had a problem when head coach Doug Marrone benched Blake Bortles during the Jaguars’ 20-7 loss to Houston on Sunday. Bortles, who lost his second fumble of the day on his first drop back of the second half, was replaced by Cody Kessler, a signal-caller whom Jacksonville acquired from Cleveland during the offseason in exchange for a seventh-round pick. It was the 26th time Bortles has had multiple turnovers in a game since he entered the league in 2014, the most in the league in that span per <a href="http://www.espn.com/espn/now?nowId=21-41039762-4">ESPN Stats & Info</a>. After the game, Marrone said that the turnovers were “disappointing” and that the team’s quarterback situation “is open.”</p>
<p id="4UeF3p">The Jaguars finally seem to recognize what has been obvious to everyone else for years: Blake Bortles is not an NFL-caliber quarterback. But what took so long?</p>
<p id="iJo2Ni">After being drafted third overall by Jacksonville in 2014, Bortles went 11-33 as a starter and threw 64 of his 69 passing touchdowns while the team was losing. During training camp in August 2017, just three months after the team exercised Bortles’s fifth-year option for $19 million, they held a quarterback competition between him and Chad Henne. His teammates seemed to <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/8/18/16166086/blake-bortles-jaguars-qb-job">want him to lose the job</a>. Even last season when the Jaguars surprised everybody by winning 10 games and making the AFC championship, the team succeeded in large part by removing Bortles from their game plan <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/10/10/16452830/post-quarterback-jacksonville-jaguars-blake-bortles-denver-broncos-peyton-manning">as much as possible</a>. </p>
<p id="WiahTq">Jacksonville’s 2017 game plan was to grab an early lead, protect it by forcing opponents to throw against a ferocious pass rush and a talented secondary, and then kill the clock on offense with Leonard Fournette. In those games, when Bortles just had to hand the ball off, the Jags were fantastic, going 10-2 in the 12 games in which they scored first. In every other scenario, though, the team struggled. According to the <em>Football Outsiders Almanac</em>, the Jaguars in 2017 were the most efficient offense in football in the first quarter but just 21st in the rest of the game, and their defense was the second worst in efficiency when losing by more than a touchdown. Any time the Jaguars needed to rely on Bortles, they were doomed.</p>
<p id="9UYcJz">Despite all of that, the Jaguars <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/2/26/17054442/blake-bortles-contract-extension-jacksonville-jaguars">extended Bortles this offseason</a> for three years and $54 million, and were rewarded with more mediocre play. Bortles has made all the same mistakes in 2018 that he made earlier in his career. He’s made bad reads ...</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">3 defenders around, Bortles lobs it to his receiver anyways. lol <a href="https://t.co/GVjPltLKtS">pic.twitter.com/GVjPltLKtS</a></p>— New Account (@ftbeard_17) <a href="https://twitter.com/ftbeard_17/status/1051602173354602496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2018</a>
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<p id="lAPqsU">... bad decisions …</p>
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<p lang="fr" dir="ltr"> Mesdames, messieurs, Blake Bortles avec un Fumble <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Texans?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Texans</a> <a href="https://t.co/AjQnQAyNx7">pic.twitter.com/AjQnQAyNx7</a></p>— NFL France (@FirstDownFR) <a href="https://twitter.com/FirstDownFR/status/1054057205744521222?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a>
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<p id="hq79px">… and, of course, bad throws.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bortles being Bortles.. ♂️ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SossStraightTalkShow?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SossStraightTalkShow</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnchorFM?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AnchorFM</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NFL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Spotify?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Spotify</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Itunes?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Itunes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jags?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Jags</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chiefs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chiefs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhereWasHeThrowing?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WhereWasHeThrowing</a> <a href="https://t.co/073qSaD7Pk">pic.twitter.com/073qSaD7Pk</a></p>— Brother Stark (@CoolAsTheMFFan) <a href="https://twitter.com/CoolAsTheMFFan/status/1049330985962262528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2018</a>
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<p id="ZVfW6m"><a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1049006974719811584"><em>Really</em> bad throws</a>.</p>
<p id="vdPnif">The Jaguars that nearly made last year’s Super Bowl are now 3-4 and a game (and a head-to-head loss) behind the Texans in a winnable AFC South. Some of Jacksonville’s decline is due to injury— Fournette has been fighting a hamstring injury and has played only two games this year and backup Corey Grant is on IR with a foot injury. But the team’s formerly formidable defense has regressed, too. Cornerback Jalen Ramsey, who did <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2018/8/15/17693610/jalen-ramsey-trash-talk-quarterbacks">a ton of talking in August</a>, hasn’t backed it up this season and has gone from a 91.3 overall Pro Football Focus grade in 2017 to 72.8 in 2018. A defense that was second in turnovers and sacks last season is now tied for 28th and 18th in those categories this year, respectively. </p>
<p id="q8ZHnU">The Jags still have a shot at the playoffs, but it’s unclear who will be leading them toward the postseason. Just hours before Sunday’s game, ESPN’s Adam Schefter <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25041041/jacksonville-jaguars-not-considering-trade-qb-challenge-blake-bortles">reported</a> the Jaguars were not considering trading for a quarterback. </p>
<p id="Ph0oBK">“The Jaguars believe that the quarterback position is the least of their issues,” Schefter wrote. “More disconcerting to them is the fact that they have been one of the most injured teams in the league.”</p>
<p id="DEv8hn">Injuries heal, but the scars of watching Bortles throw footballs into his offensive linemen’s heads do not. If the Jaguars want to compete, they’ll need to either pray that Kessler can lead them to the promised land (he can’t), or acquire a quarterback in a trade, whether it’s Tyrod Taylor, Josh McCown, Eli Manning, or literally anybody else that can throw a spiral. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="cZjxqN">There’s a strong argument that none of the quarterbacks available to Jacksonville are the right answer for this team. But at this point, it’s clear that Bortles is not the answer either. </p>
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/10/21/18006572/blake-bortles-benched-jacksonville-jaguarsDanny Heifetz